JORGE AND THE TRANSLATOR
Jorge Rodriguez was the meanest, orneriest bandit on the Texas-Mexico border. The guy would slip across the line, raid the banks of south Texas, and steal ’em blind. Before they could catch him, he would race back into Mexico and hide out. No matter how hard the law tried, they could never catch him.
Finally the Texans got fed up with the nonsense and decided to put the toughest Texas Ranger they had on the case. Sure enough, that got the job done. After only a few days of searching, the Ranger found the bandit in a dingy, dusty saloon south of the border. He bolted into the bar, pulled both guns, and yelles "Okay, stick ’em up Jorge, you’re under arrest. I know you got the money."
Suddenly a little guy over in the corner butted in. "Wait, wait ... just a minute, senor" he said. "Jorge does not speak English. He’s my amigo, so I’ll translate for you."
The Ranger explained, "Look, we know he’s the bandit we’ve been looking for. We know he’s taken thousands and thousands of dollars--about a million bucks actually. We want it back NOW! Either he pays up or I’ll fill him full of holes. You tell him that!"
"Okay, okay! I’ll tell him ... I’ll tell him." So the little fellow turned to Jorge and repeated in Spanish everything the Ranger had said. The Texas Ranger, not knowing a word of the language, waited for the bandit’s reply.
Jorge listened, frowned, then responded in Spanish, "Okay, they got me. Tell him to go down to the well just south of town, count four stones down from the top of the well, then pull out the one loose stone. All the money I have stolen I’ve hidden behind the stone."
Then the clever little translator turned to the Texas Ranger and translated with a shrug, "Jorge says, ’Go ahead you big mouth and shoot, cuz I’m not telling you where the money is."
(From a sermon by Guy Glass, "Communion and the Believer in Christ," 2/9/2009)